While You Were Teaching

Chapter 18- Two is Better Than One

"Hey." I pulled out the chair across from Reina and tried to remember how to breathe.  My breath was coming out in short, spastic gasps as my lungs desperately tried to get my oxygen deprivation to a minimum.  I sounded worse than my dogs did when I took them out for a walk on a hot July day.  Why did running always make me feel like I was one step away from dying?

I had run straight from Dominic's office to the library, without pausing for a single second to catch my breath, because I didn't want to be later to our study date than I already was.  Reina has a thing about punctuality. 

"Where were you?" Reina asked accusingly, furrowing her eyebrows together and glaring at me.  Her green eyes bore into mine and I held up a finger as I tried yet again to catch my breath. 

She rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and with a loud sniff, said dismissively, "I've been waiting for you for over forty minutes.  I already finished Chapter One."

"Sorry…" I said breathlessly, my cheeks warm from exertion.  I really need to start working out one of these days. "I was finishing this other thing up, but I came here as soon I could."

"Whatever. At least you're here now, right?" She didn't wait for me to respond as she buried her face back in her Economics textbook.

I opened my textbook to Chapter Two and took in my surroundings, looking at all my fellow classmates who were all in various states of distress.  A table to my right was full of sorority girls who were holding up flashcards and quizzing each other on the different parts of the human brain.  Each time someone got an answer right they were rewarded with a sour gummy worm.  Sounds like a pretty good study tactic to me.

One girl in the far left corner of the room was having what looked like a mental breakdown.  Black streaks of mascara were running down her cheeks and her boyfriend was desperately trying to convince her that a B on a Chemistry test would not get her kicked off the Dean's List.  By the way her sobs kept getting louder and louder, it was clear to me and everyone else in the general vicinity that she clearly wasn't buying it.

Another boy in a dark blue hoodie was sleeping peacefully on his arm, completely oblivious to the madness surrounding him.  Oh, Midterms.  Everyone has to find some way to deal with them, and some are able to deal with the stress easier than others.  Unfortunately for me, I was more like mascara girl than hoodie boy.  I had been pretty much a nervous wreck the last week.  My only real time of relaxation was that brief moment with Dominic and that had not lasted nearly long enough.  But I had promised Reina, and as much as I didn't want to, I knew I needed to study.

I fixed my gaze back on Reina and watched passively as she flipped another page and silently mouthed the definitions of the highlighted words.  Two weeks had passed since our girls night and Reina and I hardly said two words to each other over that time period.  My jaw had actually dropped when I had received a text message from her last night asking if I wanted to study for Econ at three o'clock in the library.

"Are you still mad at me?" I whispered, leaning over the table.

"Mad? What would I be mad about?" She ripped her gaze from the book and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as she awarded me with an icy, cold smile.

"Maybe about the Liam thing?" I stupidly asked, thinking that maybe somehow she had miraculously forgotten about my earlier outburst.  She hadn't.

"Oh." Her red lips formed a big O and her eyes turned a darker shade of green.  She smiled cunningly and said, "You mean when you implied that the only reason a guy could possibly be interested in me was because I was sleeping with him?"  She spit the last three words in my direction and, if possible, her gaze turned even deadlier.  When she crossed her arms over her chest defensively, my stomach sunk to the floor in knots.